UAS VISION
an independent online news service for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems world
The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) has executed an immediate prohibition on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or camera drones in South Africa. Film shoots intending to use this type of production equipment, now deemed illegal, will no longer be able to obtain film permits.
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The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration has announced that seven aerial photo and video production companies have asked for regulatory exemptions that would allow the film and television industry to use unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) with FAA approval for the first time.
During this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, NASA is redoubling its efforts to probe the inner workings of hurricanes and tropical storms with two unmanned Global Hawk aircraft flying over storms and two new space-based missions. NASA’s airborne Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel or HS3 mission, will revisit the Atlantic Ocean for the third year in a row.
Scientists at the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), a Nepal-based research institute, and colleagues at Utrecht University in the Netherlands used unmanned aircraft systems to map the Lirung glacier in Nepal in 2013. Their results will appear in the July issue of the journal Remote Sensing of Environment. Continue reading
KaarbonTech has become the first company to receive a special permission from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to fly a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle within London airspace. The first flight, commissioned by The GeoInformation Group, took place over Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the home of the London 2012 Games. Continue reading
The egg white UAS lifted off from its ground station at a hospital construction site here, hovered for an instant, then zoomed off, sounding like a five-pound bee as it buzzed around the cranes towering over the six-acre project. Capable of carrying a high-resolution camera and other sensors, the quadcopter, a helicopter with four rotors that resembles a spaceship from a 1950s science fiction movie, was flying in a demonstration of its ability to serve a potentially lucrative new market for UAS: the energy industry. Continue reading
Mapping the trees in Finland’s forests sounds like a Herculean task – there are 30 billion of them, making it Europe’s most densely wooded nation. But for one start-up that’s just the warm-up act to its plan to use laser-equipped drones to shake up industry at large. From package deliveries to nuclear power plant examinations, the Helsinki-based Sharper Shape can see limitless possibilities for its system. Continue reading
The procession had an ancient vibe: Dozens of priests in white robes, leading hundreds more Catholics in a solemn procession through Northeast Washington. People chanted and sang prayers from the 3rd century, asking saints through Christianity’s history for help. The Archdiocese of Washington debuted its new, hubcap-sized flying device on Mother’s Day, using it to videotape crowds participating in a procession marking the canonizations of popes John Paul II and John the 23rd (now called St. John Paul II and St. John the 23rd). Continue reading